He smiled. An actual, factual smile. The sight of his white teeth in the middle of his tan face was so sudden and blinding she almost lifted a hand to shade her eyes. She hadn’t even been trying to make him grin, which was probably why his smile had caught her so off guard. And then it was gone. As quickly as it had appeared. And he was back to being Sourpuss Face Dagan Zoelner.
Damn. She blew out a disappointed sigh. “On the subject of being shot at and missed, who do you suppose that guy was at the airport? One of Kozlov’s cronies, maybe?” she asked. “Kozlov could have been yanking my chain when he told me he was working alone.”
“Fuck if I know.” Z shrugged. “I didn’t get a good look at him through the pouring rain.”
“Neither did I,” she agreed.
Then, for a few seconds they sat in silence, Z flicking his gaze over the control panel, her flicking her gaze over his handsome profile. She didn’t like the idea of having to shrug and say whatever when it came to the guy at the airport, but there was nothing to go on and no way to investigate while she was twenty-something-thousand feet in the air. So she shoved it all aside and tried to clear her head. When she did, her mind wandered back to Dan and Penni, to the affection the two seemed to share, and before she even knew she was going to ask the question, she blurted, “Did you know Dan’s wife?”
Z turned to her. Slowly. Then he sat perfectly still. Eerily still. Which is how she knew she’d touched on a subject he in no way wanted to discuss. His words confirmed it. “One sentence in and I’m already hating the new direction of this conversation.”
Still, she’d already broached the topic. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Did you?”
“No,” he admitted after another long pause. “She died before I joined BKI.”
“Oh.” She nodded, then ventured, “Do you supposed Penni knows about her?”
“I have no idea.”
“I don’t think she does,” she said contemplatively.
“What makes you say that? Do you read minds? Is there a crystal ball hidden somewhere in your giant purse?”
“She didn’t know he was an alcoholic,” she said, ignoring the jab at her satchel. “So I suspect she doesn’t know he’s a widower.”
“Why would one have anything to do with the other?” he asked, frowning. “Dan’s ashamed of being an alcoholic. So maybe that’s why he kept it from her. There’s nothing shameful about being a widower.”
“Not shameful,” she said, her brow wrinkled in thought. “But…I don’t know. I think Penni would act differently if she knew.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. I just think loving a widower would be hard to handle. Not knowing if you were second best. Not knowing if—”
“You think she loves him?” he cut her off.
“Yeah, maybe,” she allowed. “Did he…love her, do you think?” she asked. “His wife, I mean.”
Zoelner blew out an exasperated sigh. “Where are you going with this? And how can I make sure to go the opposite way?”
“It’s not like I’m sticking my nose is someone else’s rose here, but—”
“Could’ve fooled me,” he said.
“I keep thinking about her,” she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “I keep thinking about her and about Dan and about Penni.” She turned to blink at him.
“Your words form a statement, but your face forms a question,” he grumbled. His usually stoic expression was anything but. He actually appeared discombobulated. Imagine that. Dagan Zoelner feeling awkward. It was such a novelty she knew she just had to keep pressing.
“My question is, do you think Dan loved his wife?”
“Yes,” he ground out. “I think he loved her. And I know her death nearly killed him.”
“Mmm. The drinking?”
“Yes, the drinking,” Z confirmed.
“I figured as much,” she said a little sadly. That a man such as Dan, a loyal man, a courageous man, a good man could be brought so low…it didn’t bear dwelling on. Yet, dwell she did until the silence in the cockpit grew, until the hum of the engines seemed to fill the space inside the plane and all emptiness inside her chest. “You have to be really brave,” she finally said, almost to herself.
“What do you mean?”
“To be in love. Knowing that something terrible can happen and your heart can get smashed into a million tiny pieces. Knowing that you’re giving someone that kind of power over you. Knowing that you have that kind of power over another.”
For a few seconds, Z said nothing. Then he admitted, “I…think you’re right.” He waited a beat before adding, “You do have to be brave. Braver than I’ve ever been.”
She searched his face and wondered why she should feel both thrilled and saddened by the knowledge that he’d never been in love.